A Non -Governmental Organization, North Western Nigeria Development Association of Renewable Energy in conjunction with Federal Ministry of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs has trained fifty (50) Almajiris and other youths on mainstreaming to encourage scavengers of plastic bottles for low rural dwellers in the country.
Founder of the NGO , Mr. Yahaya Ahmed stated this while presenting certificate and awards to the best performing students at the center in Yelwa village, along Kaduna -Zaria road.
He explained that the training became imperative following the need to build their capacity on self reliance and entrepreneurship, in the field of constructing houses with plastic bottles to save the environment from pollution, as well as reduce the quantity of waste and garbages in their communities.
According to him, the students were trained extensively on the latest technology of building, design and decoration through plastic bottles for constructing houses that are fire-proof and can resist natural disasters due to its eco-friendly nature.
He added that workers at the Centre filled the plastic bottles with sand , and linked them at the neck by an intricate network of strings to build the house.
Yahaya said, they were trained on various fields starting from waste collection from scavengers at the trash dump centre, to mixing the bottles with local sand and laying the foundation of building a strong- house.
“This type of plastic decorated houses is the cheapest house that everyone can construct without spending much money because the building materials are available on the streets, river banks, and trash dump centres”.
“The trainees spend months of extensive training at the center with other specialists from some part of the world that voluntarily came to educate and sensitize them on latest plastic bottles designs to enable them become professionals in the field of designing and construction of locally made houses that can last for hundreds of years”.
“They are now our Ambassadors that can represent us at any where across the world, because they are been trained and fully certified by the organization that them trained for months,” he explained”.
Mr. Yahaya further pointed out that the participants were also trained on how to make interlocking tiles from pure water sachets and other plastic waste from the environment, with the aim of embracing new housing constructions technology from scavengers.
“They also make blocks from pure water sachets which they sales at affordable prices. The block is stronger than the normal blocks people buys at block factories”.
“Any house constructed with plastic bottles used to be like fire proof, bullet proof, earthquake-resistant and can adapt to all kinds of climate change like desertification and other forms of ecological challenges,” he stated.
Also speaking, Professor Babatunde Bolanji who is part of the Federal Government delegation from Federal Ministry of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs said the youths that attended the training have gotten a job that would help to reduce
unemployment in the society.
“It is our collective responsibility to see that more rural and urban youths are train in the field of housing constructions from waste plastic bottles, so as to save the environment against the human irrational activities causing flood and other problems related to environmental degradation that have negative impact on agricultural land and production”.
While stressing that they are planning to train more unemployed youths and other graduate into the field of building, he appealed to all the graduate to use the knowledge learned towards building more beautiful houses that can last for hundreds of years.
One of the beneficiaries at the event, Lawal Muktar, expressed satisfaction and thanked the organizers of the event for helping them with new knowledge and skills to better their future.
He said that he was going to open a new centre for training more almajirai and other youths in the communities to have more engineers in the society.
Daniel Karlmax
